College football fans must boycott

By John Fischer

Posted 12/10/08

Every season, at this time of the year, fans, analysts, players, coaches, administrators and everybody else in college football begin arguing their stance on the current Bowl Championship Series (BCS), which determines the rankings for all 119 teams in Division I-A and inevitably, the number one and two teams that will play for the NCAA Championship. And each year, we are all left confused, angered, disappointed, unappreciated and whatever other feelings of anguish we might feel when those two teams are determined.

Like every other year, a playoff system is pleaded for by all of us around the country. And like every other year, the heads of the BCS Committee assure us that will never happen and the system they’ve chosen is best. And to no avail, we always accept it, even though we can all think of some recent controversies that have proved their system’s faults (Michigan being pushed out by Florida in ’06, Boise State being shafted in ’07).

I think we all believe the BCS ranking system does a good job of judging the teams based on all reasonable categories (different polls, strength of schedule, wins, losses, etc.). But, what I think we all believe is that after 11 or 12 games, you can’t possibly know who the best college football team is, no matter what ranking system is used.

What we all want is to see the top-tier teams compete against each other in an eight-team playoff system. They can keep using their BCS Rankings to determine the eight teams and then everybody would be happy.

It’s just too hard to say there are only two teams deserving of college football’s top prize when you have as many teams as there are in the NCAA.

Eight teams is a perfect amount because that would allow an undefeated team with decent credentials (not many close games, impressive wins over decent non-conference teams, etc.) to have an opportunity, something that has yet to happen, to play against what are considered the country’s best teams for the championship as well as allowing some of the BCS Conference teams suffering from their first loss late in the season as their position in the polls would have been significantly greater had the had that same loss earlier in the season a la Texas Tech losing their first game a couple of weeks ago compared to Florida losing in week three (Florida plays Oklahoma for the championship on Jan. 8). Also, eight teams allows for each team to only have to play two more extra games than would currently be played, while creating six more games of revenue for the schools and the NCAA.

So fans, this year, we must revolt and not participate in this years games, in any way, to show the BCS Committee that what we millions and millions of fans, pouring money into these schools and this sport, in one way or another, think is more important than what they think.